BSquare lets smart grid firm download new apps to meters

BSquare announced yesterday it entered into an agreement with a global supplier of smart grid and smart city solutions, that was not named in the announcement, to use BSquare's DataV IOT software to enable a distributed-app environment across its smart meter offerings. The one-year subscription will let utilities around the world dynamically download apps to individual meters, thus continuously adding functionality that can drive down costs, improve grid reliability and enable new services, the firm said.

An option for a four-year extension of the subscription was included. BSquare will be entitled to collect a monthly per-app royalty on applications provisioned on individual meters once certain volume milestones have been achieved.

"We believe the challenges associated with provisioning and managing applications on tens of millions of devices distributed globally have been overlooked by many in the IOT industry but are readily addressed by the modular DataV IOT software stack, which is designed for use cases that require hyper-scale," said BSquare CEO Jerry Chase in prepared remarks. "By working closely with this customer, we've been able to help them develop an innovative and compelling solution for smart grids and smart cities."

BSquare will include maintenance and support services and some components of DataV will run on the meters themselves while other components run in the cloud. Cloud infrastructure will be provided by BSquare partner Microsoft using its Azure platform, the firm said.

For over two decades, BSquare has helped its customers extract business value from a broad array of physical assets by making them intelligent, connecting them and using the data they generate to optimize business processes, it added. The DataV software solutions can be deployed by a wide variety of enterprises to create business-focused IOT systems that more effectively monitor device data, automate processes, predict events and produce better business outcomes.

BSquare goes a step further by coupling its software with comprehensive analytic and engineering services that can help organizations of all types make IOT a business reality, the firm said.